


Another and the Same

by Ellie5192



Series: The Laws of Physics [2]
Category: Sneakers (1992)
Genre: F/M, Liz's musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 02:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2565002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellie5192/pseuds/Ellie5192
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,<br/>And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!<br/>— Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,<br/>Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,<br/>Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,<br/>And soars and shines, another and the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another and the Same

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a drabble. Oops. Consider this a semi-sequel to my other Liz/Martin story, Enough For Now. Total fluff, with content lovingly borrowed from Erasmus Darwin’s “The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation”.

**Another and the Same**

Did you know that the grandfather of Charles Darwin wrote a poem in which he described the theory of the Big Bang and the Big Crunch? It’s true, he did, he wrote a poem in which he describes the splendour of the stars swirling and changing, starting young and then growing old. Likens them to the plants in a field or perhaps a hanging garden – to all times there is a season, I suppose is what he was saying. I like that thought. I know it sounds romantic, especially for me, but in a world that can be so precise to calculate and yet populated with such complex creatures, it is nice to know that everything will fall into place. That there is an order that we cannot always see, but that will become apparent in time. Not even the stars themselves can escape it.

It is a stunning thought, I think – this idea that the entire universe is not exempt from the feeling of being flung far and wide only to be pulled back once more with such force – such overwhelming gravity – that it collides with itself and then changes again; is born into something new and different and yet also completely wonderful. I’ve always liked the theory of the Big Crunch. It has a synchronicity to it as mesmerising as Fibonacci; as beautiful as Euler’s equation. It explains the unexplainable.

That’s what he is to me.

I am flung away, and yet in time, inevitably, I am drawn back. And we collide together, more spectacularly than before and yet in a way wholly familiar to me. And then from the wreckage we become something new. Something equally wonderful, so that I pine for the old days and yet revel in these new ones. Take comfort in the familiar slope of his shoulder and the firmness of his body next to mine, but bask in the glow of his freedom, and our new life, and this little Victorian terrace house, with the downstairs kitchen half renovated and my new piano installed in the front parlour.

We were not ready for this life back when I first fell in love with him. I did not understand how to love him then, and he did not understand that I would not join his little crew; would not sacrifice my principles. We were so mad for each other that we never took the time to learn each other. Never stopped to consider how twenty or thirty years would look in our holding pattern. It was quick, frenetic, and heartbreaking. And then again, exactly the same but a year older, for the same reasons but in a new time. It fell into the same push and pull that I endured the first time, and ended with that final walk out his door. It was a large crash and a sudden silence.  

But I think we’re ready now. Or, at least, I certainly hope we are. I paid half the deposit on this place, after all. We have learned from the last time, determined to make sure that this will work. I know what his life looks like from the inside, now, and he has helped me retain myself. I have kept my music. I teach, just as I’ve always loved.

We are the same as we were, and yet entirely different. We are happy, and vibrant, and full of life, but we have shed the innocence of the past, and the ignorance and the lies. Watching him is like rediscovering a forgotten memory; like seeing something that feels familiar but you’ve never lived before. It’s like déjà vu. It’s magnificent.

 _Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,_ __  
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!  
— Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,  
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,  
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,  
And soars and shines, another and the same.


End file.
